Scottish BAFTA for Duns games expert

Gareth was part of the award winning team to collect the BAFTA Scotland

Published:07:00Thursday 10 November 2016

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Former Berwickshire High School pupil Gareth Robinson picked up a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Scotland award at a ceremony in Glasgow at the weekend.

Gareth, 25, joined stars such as James McAvoy and Peter Capaldi at the red-carpet event to collect the award on behalf of game company Space Budgie, winner of the game category with Glitchspace.

Hosted by Edith Bowman, the awards celebrated the best in film, television and games produced over the last year in Scotland, with Bill Paterson, Gary Lewis, McAvoy, Martin Compston and Vicky McClure among the presenters handing out the coveted awards on the night.

Speaking after picking up the BAFTA, Gareth said: “I’m surprised and very, very happy about the award.

“A lot of hard work when into it over a long time

“The game took about three years in total, and I think we were so happy to get the final product out.”

Gareth is a graduate of Abertay University in Dundee and is now working as a games programmer and designer in the city, often described as Scotland’s Silicon Valley.

The BAFTA-winning game Glitchspace is just one of a number of projects that Gareth has worked on.

As an independent freelance games developer, he is currently working on a mobile project.

Publicity material for Glitchspace describes it as being about reprogramming the game to solve puzzles.

“Trapped in an abstract cyberspace world, your way forward uses visual programming to edit environmental geometry, while unlocking key programming concepts along the way. Stretch, scale, rotate, manipulate and create, explore a world of reprogrammable geometry as you discover your way home, ever distant on the horizon.”

Such is the nature of the market that despite its BAFTA success, the independent games studio Space Budgie, which took three years to make Glitchspace, is closing its doors.

“ Glitchspace didn’t have the sort of return that we were anticipating,” explains the company’s website.